Today's prompt: LOSS OF TIME.

I met my friend Bobbyjohn when I was a sophomore at MSU and he was a freshman. He lived on the same floor as my boyfriend, Bob; in fact, he was a good friend of Bob’s roommate, Fritz. When Bob and I broke up during my junior year, I remained friends with both Bobbyjohn and Fritz, a fact that was a sore point with my ex. We were all just casual friends--they were good guys and fun to hang out with occasionally. Their fifth floor dorm wing became known as the Cabana Bananas, and their Who parties were legendary. Several of the guys were amateur musicians and they’d each take on the persona of a band member in The Who and jam. It was all wild, harmless, and slightly eccentric fun. They continued the tradition when they all moved to Inn Limbo, their house off campus.

Bobbyjohn was a big fan of the outdoors and after I had worked a couple of summers in the national parks, he was interested and asked for details about how to apply. I was happily anticipating working with him in Colorado during the summer of 1975, but he had waited too long and there were no longer any openings. We were both disappointed.

It wasn’t until a year after I graduated and had moved back from Colorado to spend a summer in East Lansing that I got to know Bobbyjohn a little better. He had just graduated himself and had a summer job on campus. I was working as a waitress at the Big Boy restaurant. The campus was less populated and moved at a slower pace during the summers. There were fewer distractions and more opportunities to get to know one another. He and I spent some afternoons at the outdoor pool on campus, we bowled together and went for bike rides out in the country. He and his buddies were going on a camping trip one weekend and he asked me to go with him. I happily looked forward to it. Up until then, it really hadn’t seemed like we were “dating;” we were just enjoying each other’s company as friends. But now I was wondering if it might develop into something more.

The week leading up to the camping weekend was a busy one for me and the day before we were leaving, I realized that I desperately needed to do some laundry in addition to the fact that my sleeping bag and camping gear were still at my parents’ house. So on Friday, I set out for a last-minute trip home, an hour’s drive in both directions. Bobbyjohn was to pick me up at my house in East Lansing in the late afternoon.

One thing lead to another, and my spur-of-the-moment trip home took longer than expected. I realized as I was headed back to East Lansing that I was going to be late, and I hoped that Bobbyjohn would hang out with my roommates for a little while until I got there. But the anticipated camping trip just wasn’t in the cards for me. My roommates told me that Bobbyjohn had been at the house and had waited about an hour until he just had to leave. Truly disappointed, I was kicking myself for being so disorganized and worried about unintentionally standing him up.

I don’t remember the first conversation we had after that, but I’m sure that I apologized and he accepted my apology. We remained friends but it was nearing the end of the summer, and I was moving to California with my friend Sue while Bobbyjohn got a job with Frontier Airlines and moved to Colorado. I saw him and Fritz one more time each when they came out to California with friends and looked me up. He and I exchanged Christmas cards with pictures of our families over the years. He had three children including a son with Down’s Syndrome, and he became heavily involved with a camp for handicapped children in Denver. We became Facebook friends and discovered a mutual interest in cycling. In one Facebook conversation we remembered those long ago country bike rides back in East Lansing, and he told me that he’d tried his best to flirt with me. I wonder why I didn’t pick up on that at the time?

I've always looked at that camping trip as a lost opportunity. In November 2010, Bobbyjohn died unexpectedly from a heart attack. He had spent a beautiful fall morning cycling with his friend in the Colorado mountains. When his wife arrived home from work, she found him dead on the kitchen floor, still wearing his cycling clothes. The tragic news made me sad beyond measure. I often think of him, especially when I ride my bike or hear a Who song on the radio. "Behind Blue Eyes" was his favorite song and will forever remind me of him. I dedicate the first ride of every cycling season to the memory of Bobbyjohn.  RIP, my friend.